Camping, eels, and heavy rain

Mountain View Farm, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa c.1964

The four of us, my brother and me, and Charles and David Hayes, had camped several times on Mountain View farm each year since I was thirteen.  When I was 17, we thought we would try something new and camp “up river” where the Elands River passed through a narrow valley in a series of pools before spilling out into a long rocky section.  It was still summer, so the freezing cold nights of our winter wouldn’t be on the agenda.  The possibility of rain was greater however.  Our new camp in Rocky Valley was a fairly long hike from the farm house, over a spur and along a narrow trail, so we packed only what was essential.  We took a fly-sheet this time and no tent.  We also took some of the fishing tackle we would need to catch eels.  There were six of us on this trip as friends Dougie Anderson and Mike Viljoen had joined us.

We had to cross the river in a very rugged rocky section, jumping across small cascades and pools.  We realized that if the river rose it would be difficult to return by the same route but how likely was that?  Crossing the river at this point was the remainder of an old pipeline which had been used to pipe water to the valley below. There were five or six concrete columns spanning the river and across the top, about 12 feet above the rocks, was a steel I-beam which looked to be about six inches wide that had supported a pipe. The pipe that must have been there at one time had long since been removed for use elsewhere.  Sections of a rusted and broken handrail ran alongside the steel beam.  We figured that, in an emergency, we would be able to cross the rocks on the 12 foot high “bridge” but didn’t ever think we would actually have to do that.

A hundred yards or so after the river crossing we set up a really nice camp in a shady space next to a deep dark pool in the river.  The valley was narrow here and steep hills rose up on either side of the river.  This camp would soon be named “Texas.”  A few of the group had brought “Texan” cigarettes with them, so we christened our new camp in honor of their choice of cigarettes.

Eel fishing was something new.  To catch eels we had to catch live frogs to use for bait. At the end of a long length of nylon cord we tied a swivel and then a 12 inch long piece of stainless steel tracer with another swivel at its end.  To this a large, very sharp, hook was attached.  After setting up camp we hiked downstream to fish for large-mouth bass. In some of the clear pools we could see them lurking in the deep shady areas.  A couple of good bass lures (a ‘jitterbug” and “hula popper” among them) soon landed us three or four pan-size fish for dinner.

Back at camp we collected wood and made a nice fire and soon we were ready to cook our fish.  We would generally fillet the fish in two halves, and put the two scaly sides together.  Then we wrapped the two sides of each fish in aluminium (aluminum) foil with a little butter on the fleshy sides.  These foiled-wrapped bass were then placed on the hot coals and covered with more hot coals.  After ten or fifteen minutes we took them from the fire, peeled away the foil, leaving the two scaly skins stuck together, removed the tender, juicy and flavourful meat.  These baked fish meals were something I will always remember with relish. 

As everyone knows, the best time to catch frogs is at night.  After a gourmet fish dinner we headed for the rock pools of the river with our torches (flashlights).  Frogs don’t move very well when blinded by the light of a torch and it didn’t take long to catch half a dozen of the slippery amphibians.  Back at camp, with our bucket of frogs we baited the eel lines by tying the frogs onto the hooks with nylon fishing line.  They were still kicking when we threw the lines into the dark pool, tied the cord lines to a tree or stump and went back to the fire. This is not the sort of fishing that requires a lot of concentration. We would check the lines in the morning.

The following day we pulled in the lines and found we had caught a few eels. I can’t actually recall why we were fishing for them.  They were incredibly strong and had twisted the stainless steel tracers into tight knots. They were also still very much alive and had swallowed the bait whole.  We had to chop their heads off to kill them and then we decided to try and cook them by wrapping them in foil and baking them as we had the bass.  That wasn’t a great success.  Eels are boney and not very tasty. The fact that I can’t remember how they tasted is probably a good indication that they tasted pretty bad.

Later that day we were visited by all of the Whitehead cousins from Mountain View and from Forest Glade, a few miles up the valley.  Jennifer Whitehead from Mountain View and her first cousins Elmarie, Yvonne and Marlene from Forest Glade, came hiking up the river to our camp on a hot sunny day.  They often brought us something special to eat.  One of my favorites was caramel, made by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk until it turned to caramel.  We always had a good time with the girls.  They were friendly, sociable and fun to visit with.  By the afternoon they had gone home.  The skies clouded over and towards evening we knew we were in for a pretty good thunderstorm.

It began to rain and we hunkered down by the fire, hoping it would blow over in an hour or so.  A few hours later it was still raining with increasing thunder and lightning and with the persistent rain we could see, and hear, the river beginning to rise.   By about 9:00 p.m. we were drenched and getting cold and we knew we would have to get out of camp and cross the river while we still were able.  After tucking a few essentials into our backpacks and covering the food and sleeping backs with a fly-sheet we left Texas – at least for the night – not entirely sure where we would go.  The first challenge would be crossing the river with the pools now too deep to jump across and the rocks made slippery from the rain.  It soon became obvious that we would have to cross by climbing up on the old steel beam, high above the rocks and crawl the 50 yards or so on our hands and knees.  It was, by now, raining really hard and the idea of being soaking wet, holding on to a metal beam, high above a rocky river, with lightning flashing above us wasn’t too appealing.

The soaked, cold, bedraggled six eventually made it across. The darkness made it easier because visibility was so bad we couldn’t see the rocks below us and when the lightning flashed I instinctively closed my eyes.  After what seemed an eternity the six of us were safely on the muddy trail leading down the valley. It didn’t take long to decide we would have to head for the farmhouse at Forest Glade. It was about a mile closer than Mountain View and in those conditions a mile less was significant. I don’t remember what time we arrived at the farmhouse but it was probably around midnight.  The house was in darkness when our totally drenched bunch of 16 and 17 year old campers knocked on the door.  

Soon Mrs. Whitehead, her older daughters and their cousin Jennifer, had us wrapped in towels and standing in front of a roaring fire.  Hot cups of tea lifted our spirits and our wet clothing was peeled away (down to the bare essentials anyway).  We were miraculously warm again after several hours of shivering in the cold.  Before too long we were all sleeping on the living room floor, wrapped in blankets and warm hospitality.

In the morning hot coffee was followed by a wonderful breakfast of sausages, eggs and scones, with farm produced honey.  The sun came out and another beautiful day lay ahead of us.  Our arrival at Forest Glade in the dead of night, in a heavy storm, and sleeping on the floor, was the topic of conversation for many years.  This

adventure from my youth happened 50 years ago and I recently received an e-mail from Jennifer Eldridge (nee Whitehead) who recalled the weekend when the Forest Glade farmhouse was filled to capacity with everyone sleeping on the floor.  Such are the enduring memories from one’s childhood and teenage years.

Friendships and camping

Victoria Falls - from the air, photo taken August 2004

    We have booked our reservations for the July 2012 trip - at least the Zimbabwe part of the trip.  Deposits for the safari camps will have to be paid by September and we will confirm our plane tickets at the same time.  The plan for our South African travel hasn't been worked out yet but it looks like we will fly from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg on July 25, and spend the next ten days along the southern coast from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town.

Friends and camping.

    In 1957, soon after entering Std. VI (8^th grade), my brother and I were approached by David Hayes and asked if we would like to go camping on his grandparents' farm. David and I would soon begin a friendship that has lasted 54 years. David's grandparents owned a farm about 20 miles west of Uitenhage, along the Elands River. It was, at the time, and certainly remains today, one of the most beautiful and picturesque places I have ever known. Without intending to go into a long and complicated story at this point, I still need to provide some back ground to the events that would follow in subsequent years after becoming friends with David and his older brother Charles. 
 
    My dad was an avid hunter. He learned to hunt from his father and from an early age my dad and my grandfather would hunt to put food on the table. The backwoods of Alabama would provide rabbit, turkeys and deer to supplement their often meager provisions. My twin brother and I had learned to shoot and to safely handle firearms at an early age. For our 10^th birthday we were given single-shot, bolt action, .22 caliber rifles and taught basic shooting skills. 

    One of the managers at the Uitenhage Goodyear plant was George Whitehead, who learned of my dad's interest in hunting. It wasn't long before my dad was invited to a weekend hunt at Mountain View Farm, the home of George's parents. It was a successful hunt for my dad who became friends with the Whitehead family. In the next few years he established himself as a competent hunter and an excellent marksman; ultimately providing him with an ever-widening circle of farmers and hunting enthusiasts in the region who would give him opportunities to hunt. His knowledge of and interest in the amazing variety of wildlife in the area grew over the years; as did his circle of friends.
    
    David and Charles Hayes were George Whitehead's nephews. They were the two sons of his sister Hilda Hayes who, along with their older brother Stan, were born and raised on the farm Mountain View. The family had generously suggested to my dad that my brother and I might like to spend a few days on the farm camping and this led to the first of many adventures for the four of us. David was a year younger than we were, and Charles was a year older. David and I became partners in many excursions into the beautiful valley at Mountain View and Charles and John teamed up to try our patience at times, but to always ensure there were no dull moments.

Mountain View Farm - photographed in January 1964.

    It is difficult to adequately describe the farm. It was, in those days, a nine mile (15km) drive on a paved road southwest out of Uitenhage across the Swartkops River to a right turn at Rocklands. A few rural houses and a chicken farm were the most notable features. In the 1950s, Rocklands also featured a wildlife sanctuary of sorts, called Wide Horizons. It displayed a variety of animals in relatively confined fenced areas and cages. By today’s standards Wide Horizons would not have been permitted to operate. Fortunately for its inhabitants, it closed down in the 1960s. Most interesting to me, on the one or two occasions that I stopped there, were the variety of birds we could see, such as peacocks, turkeys and many species of colorful South African birds such as Knysna Louries. 
 
    Much of the gravel road from Rocklands heading in a northwesterly direction is paved now but back then it was a dusty, often badly corrugated, road. About 12 miles (20km) from Rocklands, a short distance after passing the Sand River Dam on the left, we would take an unmarked turn right onto the farm road in the middle of a stand of Eucalyptus (or Blue gum) trees. Through several gates and over cattle grids (guards) the narrow three mile (5km) dirt road from there passed by rounded hills covered with wild proteas (suikerbos) and thick shoulder high shrub vegetation. On the right was ploughed, dry-land cropland, planted with winter wheat, lucerne, maize (corn) and other grains depending on the season. The last mile of the road descended down a steep mountain side with several switchbacks into the Elands River valley. In the distance, about a mile away you could see the small, old traditional Cape Dutch style farmhouse, built here fifty years earlier by George Whitehead. Behind the house, the mountains rise steeply to what is now designated the Groendal Wilderness. It is a wild and remote mountainous area, frequented now mostly by backpackers. There are no roads and only limited 4-wheel drive access.

    After the steep descent into the valley you came to the Elands River and a rocky crossing. When the river was high, as occurred generally once or twice a year, crossing was only done by horseback or by a tractor pulled trailer. The wide valley floor in front of the farmhouse and further south along the valley was dotted with citrus orchards and some deciduous fruits such as apricots. Grandpa Whitehead, we were told, could sample a tangerine or orange from one of his orchards and tell you almost exactly where it was picked. I vividly remember his stories of the troops of baboons that would come into the valley each year and eat his oranges.
    He told us that baboons could count to three but no higher than that. He would build a hide in the orchard and four armed men would go into the hide. One by one three hunters would come out, making their movements obvious to the distant baboon troop. The fourth man would remain in the hide and the baboons would, in due course, venture into the orchard and begin to eat the fruit. They were very destructive because they would pluck one fruit from the tree, take one bite and throw the remainder on the ground. A family of baboons could cause a great deal of damage in a very short period of time. When the apes came within range the fourth armed man could open fire and kill a few of the unsuspecting marauders. This plan would not work if only three men went into the hide and two came out. The monkeys always knew there was one human remaining and they would stay away until he left.

    The presence of baboons was a sure indicator that there were leopards in the area. Over the years, the Whiteheads had shot a number of leopards that would become too attracted to their livestock, but for the most part, leopards sightings in the valley were rare. I can only recall seeing leopard tracks once in the years that we would camp at Mountain View.

   John and I and David and Charles would camp in this valley many times over the next four or five years. Whenever we would ask my father if we could go camping he would insist that we could only go if personally invited by the elder Whiteheads. It wasn't okay that David or Charles would ask us. So we soon developed a “protocol” to conform to my dad's requirement. The four of us boys would decide on dates to go camping and begin making plans; then David would ask his mother to ask his grandparents if it was alright. Within a day or two my dad would get a call from one of the Whiteheads asking if we could come out for a long weekend.

    The Elands River valley is a perfect place for four young boys to camp, and fish and hunt. It is, when not too high from seasonal rain, a crystal clear river with many rocky pools (read swimming holes), ideal for fishing for large-mouth bass. We would often look into the deep pools in the early morning and see bass lurking in the shadows. Consequently a rod and reel was always part of our essential equipment, as was a roll of aluminium (aluminum) foil. We would return to camp with two or three, one to two pound bass, cut the heads and tails off, and fillet them. The two sides, still with scales on them, were put together and the whole was wrapped in foil with a few dabs of butter. The sealed foiled package would be buried in the coals of the camp fire and allowed to bake for 10 to 15 minutes. When done, we would remove it and open the foil package. The flesh would fall away from the skin and the tender meat was easy to pare away from the bone. I can still taste this delicacy as I think about it.

    We usually carried a shotgun with us and from time to time would bag a few pheasant or quail to cook. David or his brother would sometimes borrow a .22 caliber rifle from their grandfather in case we would see a bushbuck or duiker on our wanderings. Both are small African antelope that make good eating. We even had a few exciting night hunts for rabbits and springhares, those rabbit-sized hopping rodents that look like midget kangaroos in the distance in the glare of a powerful flashlight (or “torch”). Springhare hunts would have to attempted on moonless nights. I remember one night when we came across a porcupine and followed it for a while, its sharp white-tipped quills bristling with annoyance at our intrusion.

    Our camping spots along the river were always chosen with care. Although we always took a tent or large canvas or plastic fly-sheet with us for shelter, we rarely used it. On winter (July) nights it was too cold to sleep in a tent. Our sleeping bags, in those days, weren't particularly warm, so we would lay on the ground as close to the fire as we could and sleep there. The first person to get cold enough would reach over and put more logs on the fire to keep the heat “turned on.” On those nights the temperatures would sometimes get down to just above freezing and heavy frosts would cover the grass and fields. 

The only photo I have of Granny Whitehead, (1973) holding my son Graham.

 
    After a cold night on the ground we would often put on our heavy coats and walk to the house where Granny Whitehead would have hot coffee or tea prepared on the wood-fueled cast iron stove in the kitchen. She was the most wonderful, generous and hospitable person you could imagine. I don't believe I ever saw her sitting still. She always seemed to be cooking or sewing, knitting or arranging something. Grandpa George would always greet us with his loud booming voice and you could never meet him in the morning without a shake of his powerful hand. He was in his seventies when we first knew him. He was broad-shouldered and powerfully built and would often saddle up a horse and ride along the river to check on his orchards or his cattle. Together they had settled in this valley, built this farmhouse and raised three children. For most of their years here there had been no electricity. Water was collected from a small mountain stream about half a mile away and was piped by gravity into tanks adjacent to the house. A small staff of dedicated, friendly employees, many of whom had been born here, helped them run the farm. Most were descended from bushmen and had the small stature and fair complexions of that race.

    We would have many adventures on this farm. The Whiteheads were substitutes for the grandparents that my brother and I had left behind in Alabama. I know that my dad, despite his insistence that we always go there by “invitation only” must have been delighted that we had the opportunity to experience the adventures that we had, especially as my mother's alcoholism would continue to grow more difficult to deal with. He would always listen to our stories and laugh when we described some of the things we would get up to.

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    I will tell a few more stories from the farm in my next blog including our run-in with a skunk, and the night we had to leave our camp in a torrential rain as the river began to rise.

Mountain View Farm in 1999. Groendal Wilderness is in the background.